Contrary to prior popular belief, the Inca rulers and their respective nobility did not regard the sun as their exclusive deity to be worshipped, but as "father", with the moon as his wife and "Pachamama", the earth herself considered "mother¨ in all her facets, from meek to majestic.Despite a swift and successful campaign by the Spanish to introduce Christian Catholicism post-Inca, ¨Pachamama" is still worshipped today by many Andean communities in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador through ritual sacrifices of burning coca leaves or slaughtering local livestock such as lamas or alpacas.
This system of divine deities did not end there however, with traditional beliefs revering almost everything unexplainable, from the rejuvenating affects of chewing coca leaves to natural phenomena such as rainbows, thunder, lightning, great bodies of water and even mountains themselves; each which had an assigned male or female spirit depending on the size, aesthetic appeal and level of volcanic activity.In rare circumstances during the time of the 14 Inca rulers from 1200-1532, human sacrifices were offered to appease nature's most terrifying forces, including earthquakes, volcano eruptions and solar eclipses, of which the latter drove the empire into frenzied panic involving all manner of rituals. Due to this, many mummies have been since found atop some of the highest or most active peaks in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, with the best preserved find a 15 year old girl of Peruvian nobility atop Mt Ampato on Sept 8, 1995.
Juanita "the ice maiden" as she is now known, remained frozen in glacial ice almost from the time of her death until approximately 500 years later after an adjacent volcano eruption, spewing hot ash into the sky and all over Mt Ampato. Anticipating the icy summit to melt, Dr Johan Reinhard and a sponsored team from National Geographic ascended literally during the eruption, in hope of finding newly discovered Inca artifacts before they would be destroyed by searing heat or exposure to the elements.
Their hopes became reality upon discovering Juanita´s ceremonial grave including pottery, clothing and symbolic artifacts for the afterlife, however their wildest dreams were exceeded soon after finding her perfectly preserved frozen body. Despite having taken a recent tumble down into the creator, which had exposed her right arm, the archaeologists. understood this to be a find of almost perfect timing, so Juanita was quickly removed from her icy prison and rushed down to the settlement city of Arequipa.
Scientists would undertake months of painstaking work thawing her out slowly for study, whilst the National Geographic ascended Mt Ampato for a 2nd time in efforts to locate more Inca findings. She was later transported to Yale University in USA for further studies, including an MRI scan which finally confirmed her precise cause of death as a short, heavy blow to the temple region of the head.It is now understood that to be chosen as a sacrifice meant great privilege, with relatives receiving life-long compensation in the belief that the offering would ascent to 'divine deity' status. A great pilgrimage would be made with high priests, probably from the capital of Cusco in this case, to the mountain peak whereby a mixture of extreme hypothermia and hallucinogenic drugs would bring Juanita to near death anyway, before the final ceremonial blow.
During the 2nd expedition up, this time following a discovered Inca Trail (probably built for the specific purpose of leading up the sacrificial party) they found 2 new mummies. This time 2 young boys, which gave further significance to the magnitude of this particular sacrifice and confirming the understanding that only the most pure and innocent were chosen for the gods. Furthermore, over the following year 8 more child mummies were found in pairs on Mt Ampato and are now on display individually at different times of the year in the Archeology Museum of Arequipa, southern Peru.
